


Flaws in Glass

by Marie_L



Category: Almost Human
Genre: Angst, Asexuality, Case Fic, Climate Change, Demisexual DRNs, Genetic Engineering, Multi, Multiple DRNs, Robot Culture, Robot Sex, Slow build for jorian, free love commune
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-03-15
Updated: 2014-05-17
Packaged: 2018-01-15 20:32:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 12,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1318231
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marie_L/pseuds/Marie_L
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A chrome-led cult has withdrawn from society, taking their pet DRNs with them. The gang is sent in to investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Road Trip

**Author's Note:**

> Set just after Dorian's performance review in S1:13. Also, Canada. Forget references to "Homeland Security," Vancouver needs a little love.

It was the vanished DRNs that led Maldonado's team to Oneida, not the vanished chromes. After Nigel's Vaughn's embarrassing theft and getaway from the station, Captain Maldonado assigned a research team, headed up by Detective Stahl, to track down and monitor the whereabouts of all functional DRNs in the metro area. It stood to reason that if Vaughn controlled the now-deceased XRN and was planning on building more androids with Synthetic Soul, he might try to make contact or even turn some of his other children too. So Stahl hunted down all active 588 units left in the city, to at least keep an eye on if not to interrogate as of yet. An additional 33 were in storage, and physically eyeballed to ensure they weren't stolen.

Twelve of the sentient androids were unaccounted for.

In a city that had some of the most advanced surveillance in the western world, that in and of itself was disturbing. Even stranger was the fact that all twelve were supposedly owned by chromes, and none had been reported as stolen or runaways. Stahl quickly determined that five of the twelve were owned by a single person, one Saffron Leung, a grad student at UBC and daughter of a massively wealthy owner of a Chinese shipping conglomerate.

"Hey, Val, you got something for us?" Kennex and Dorian wandered over, assigned as backup in case she needed an extra set of boots on the ground. Or found anything remotely dangerous.

"Something. I'm not sure it's related to Vaughn, though." She flashed Leung's vitals up on the screen. "Saffron Leung, 23, chrome ..."

"Saffron? Somebody spent half a million credits on a kid and named her _Saffron?"_

"It is the most expensive spice in the world by weight, John," Dorian said in that pedantic voice John was sure he used solely to annoy him.

"A lot of things are expensive, it doesn't mean it's good idea to name your kid after them. What's next, Helium Smith? Palladium Johnson? Copper Chen?"

"There are actually _five_ Copper Chens in the greater Vancouver metro area, and 212 other Coppers."

"People have no taste. I stand corrected."

Valerie interrupted their exchange with an amused voice. "Anyway, she's a grad student in artificial cognition down at the university. Or was: She dropped out last semester. According to the records, the DRNs were associated with her thesis, but she bought them outright and took them with her when she left."

"Must be nice to be rich," John commented. "So, we've got a chrome who's an expert on the DRNs, who disappeared a few months ago? Sounds like someone Vaughn might target."

"Yeah. I was going to hit up her old thesis adviser today and vid her parents in Shenzhen when the sun comes up over there. Her mother's Canadian so she's not an illegal. There's an angle you guys might want to investigate, though. The original purchase order from the university was for _six_ DRNs."

"Six? You said only five were missing. Where's number six?"

"Number six, DRN-225, was sold two months ago to a farmer in an unauthorized town about twenty clicks north of Chilliwack in Ag District Two. There's no bill of sale but the change in ownership was legally registered with the Tech Ministry."

"An unauthorized farmer in Timbuktu bought one of the world's most advanced synthetics? With what, carrots and sunshine? Curiouser and curiouser." John and Dorian both got why they had been called in, though. It was a lengthy drive out there, but one that took them practically past John's house in Port Tully on the way. They wouldn't have to come all the way back downtown on the route back in. "Well, Dorian, it looks like we're taking a road trip today. We'll grab a portable charger on the way out so you can get your beauty sleep at my house tonight."

Dorian face couldn't hide his gee-whiz enthusiasm for the plan, although John couldn't tell which part excited him more, getting out of town or having a sleepover. He had to smile in either case.

 

******

 

The drive out of town was a beautiful one, and it turned out to be stunning summer day. The route paralleled the Fraser river and took them by deeply forested mountain peaks with misty condensed clouds glacially moving down their jagged sides. It was humid, far too humid for a clear June day, but nothing was normal about the weather anymore and nobody bitched as long as the sun was shining. John rolled down the windows to enjoy the warm, refreshing air wafting through the countryside.

"Having the windows down will increase drag on the car and decrease our fuel efficiency by 18 percent," noted Dorian.

"Don't care, Dorian. It _feels_ nice, and how often is anybody out here when it's miraculously not raining? Does it even register with you, how pleasant this is? I guess having a sense of beauty in nature isn't something they felt necessary to give to a bunch of city-dwelling androids."

"I do have a sense of beauty. I can appreciate the fractal forms in the mountains, and the clouds, and the complex way they interact. I just don't see anything particularly special about natural forms. Something artificial can be just as lovely."

"Maybe. We humans surround ourselves with artificiality, though. It's unbalanced. I mean look around, we live in one of the most beautiful bioregions in the world, and how often do folks from the city get out here to enjoy it? British Columbia is huge, yet four million people live crammed in a few hundred square kilometers."

"It can be difficult for residents of the city to get permits to go camping. Then they have to have equipment and transportation to their destination as well."

"Maybe that's part of the problem. Maybe if we let people out of their bubble more often, the world would be a little more sane."

"Your house has a nice view of mountains and the inlet, but you still feel crazy?"

"I lucked out on that one. Thank you Grandpa Kennex for thinking ahead and buying good property in Vancouver's overpriced housing market."

Dorian seemed distracted for a few moments, and John knew something was bubbling up in that head of his. He finally burst out, "Is that how you really feel? Surrounded by artificiality? That artificiality is what allows you to walk."

"It's what blew the leg off in the first place, too. Try doing that with sticks and stones." John hoped he wasn't insulting Dorian with this line of thought. Well, too much. "You know I'm not talking about you, right? Sometimes I sort of forget you're not human. Except when you're doing that disco face, like now."

"Sure." Dorian still seemed abnormally quiet though.

"Are you going to be okay with this investigation into the DRNs? We don't know exactly what is being done to them."

"Why wouldn't I be okay?"

His cheek was still blinking blue. Why not indeed?

 

 

******

 

They pulled into the sleepy hamlet and evaluated the situation. The "town" was little more than a collection of widely spaced old wooden houses, surrounded by small highly diverse orchards, vineyards and pockets of forest. It was the sort of place where the roads were not being maintained, where chickens and children roamed unhindered, and where strangers stopping by were freely stared at, although not in an unfriendly way. The village was settled at the foothills of the Columbia Mountains, and the hilly land was outside the Ag Ministry's "efficiency threshold" for authorized farms. Thus, although the residents legally owned their property, they operated in a quasi-grey area in the face of government indifference and sometimes hostility.

"I have no records of exact addresses in this location. How do we know which house it is?"

"The old-fashioned way, Dorian. Ask somebody." John got out of the car and walked up to some kids on bikes, who were standing by the edge of the road silently assessing them. The afternoon had turned into a humid furnace, so John left his jacket in the car. When Dorian emerged to follow him, the kids all started to murmur.

"Hey, guys, do you know which house is Sofia Thompsen's?"

The oldest boy, apparently the leader of the pack, spoke up. "She's down around the corner on the left, in front of all the greenhouses. Want us to show you?"

"Sure, kid, thanks."

The boy's eyes drifted over to Dorian, silently standing behind John. "Is he a robot like Mr. Jorden?"

"Maybe. Who's Mr. Jorden?"

"Our teacher. He lives with Miss Sofia." The kids got onto their bikes and took off, and John and Dorian followed slowly in the cruiser. Around the bend they came upon an old colonial farmhouse surrounded by a beautiful flower garden, with a hectare of ventilated greenhouses behind it. The kids biked straight up to the front door.

"Miss Sofia! There's another roooooobot here to visit!"

A mid-forties woman in filthy jeans and a tank top, presumably Miss Sofia, came walking around from the back of the house to see what all the hollering was about. When she laid eyes on Dorian she paused, then motioned for the boy to come to her.

"Jacob. Go fetch Mr. Jorden now, please. He was down dealing with the strawberry irrigation last I heard. Hurry." The boy took off on his bike for the important mission, swiftly followed by the others. She then turned to Kennex and held out her hand. "Sofia Thompsen, pleased to meet you. Sorry about the dirt."

"Detective John Kennex of the Vancouver PD, this is my partner Dorian."

Sofia raised her eyebrows directly at Dorian. "I thought they ... retired all of you from police work."

"I was reinstated."

"Really? Fascinating. Well, come on inside the house. You'll both melt out here." She ushered them in and offered John something cold to drink, and washed up briefly before meeting them in the living room. After the pleasantries had been completed, she went straight to the point. "So. You're here about Jorden, right? All of my paperwork is in order."

"Jorden. That's DRN-225, right?"

"I believe that was the designation. He'll be here shortly. What exactly is the problem? We don't want any trouble with the authorities."

Dorian spoke up, softly. "We're looking for information on Saffron Leung, do you know her?"

Sofia face flickered amusement. "Of course I know her. She's the one who gave me Jorden. Kid's got a whole pack of feral DRNs up there in the trees. I swear she collects them."

"'Gave you'?" John asked. "You didn't buy him?"

"Ehhh, we have a barter arrangement for food and some specialty plants to continue for a couple of years. But no, I did not use credits, now that the government in its infinite wisdom has seen fit to eliminate cash. I needed a reliable schoolteacher and Jorden volunteered. The kids were all being bused a couple of hours a day over the river to Chilliwack. The fact that he can lift 100 kilo hay bales is merely a bonus."

"So you know where Saffron is now?"

The woman tipped back in her chair and took a sip of her water, covering up even more of a smile. John didn't see what was so funny, but it was hard not to like her utter irreverence for their authority. "Is it really possible that the all-seeing police force does not know about Oneida? Maybe the RCMP is keeping you out of the loop. I thought you guys spied on everyone."

 _"Sophie."_ The voice sounded exactly like Dorian's, but came from the front door. Everyone turned their heads in that direction, and John tried hard not to gape.

The DRN was stripped to the waist. That in itself wouldn't be cause for comment, except that every patch of his skin between the neck and belt line was _painted_ with some kind of gold substance. That in combination with his beautifully sculpted chest made him look like a shiny gilded Adonis. John suddenly found his ice water fascinating to contemplate. The DRN put on a loose fitting T-shirt over the material and came to join them.

"Jorden, this is John Kennex and Dorian of the VPD. They're having trouble locating Saff."

"Ah. As far as we know she's still at Oneida, an intentional community located on private forest land up the mountain. I can give you the exact coordinates if you want to get up there, although it's not very vehicle-friendly."

"How long has she been there?"

"About six months. She brought us up in the dead of the winter. _Great_ time to bring a bunch of androids off the grid. Saff's a genius but somewhat lacking in practical considerations. Sometimes I'm surprised Adhira puts up with her as much as she does."

Dorian, who had been staring at his exposed golden arm with evident interest, finally broke in. "Sorry man, but I've got to ask. What _is_ that stuff?"

"One of Saff's little experiments in self-sufficiency. Photosynthesis nanos. Works pretty great when the sun is shining directly, even in the winter. On a day like today I can charge up in about an hour just by walking around. But when it's been cloudy for weeks on end ... let's just say things get a little loopy up there. I'm glad to be able to top off from the grid now."

"An _hour?"_ Dorian said with incredulity. "You don't have to shut down to charge?" John shot him an impatient _we're not here to upgrade your hardware_ look. Dorian gave a tiny shrug and sent back a half-hearted apologetic _I don't get to talk to my fellow DRNs_ _much_ _so_ _can you_ _back off_ _?_ look. Normally he wasn't so obviously cheeky in front of civilians, so it irritated John even more.

Sofia patted John's hand as this silent exchange occurred. "Come on, Detective, let's let the boys talk while we take a walk. I'll be happy to answer any of your questions about Saff or Oneida."

They wandered around back, to the side of the greenhouses to the edge of an untidy fruit orchard. Everything was a jumbled riot of bright colors, all the flowers, trees, shrubs, even the chickens massed on one another in bewildering unnatural hues. The air was heavy and perfumed, giving the whole area the impression of being some kind of tropical arboretum.

"Is Saffron the leader of this, uh, intentional community?" Sofia laughed at the question.

"She's a good kid but kind of flaky. I wouldn't put her in charge of my flock of turkeys, let alone human beings. The DRNs are her project but they can fend for themselves, thankfully. In other words, no, she's not considered one of the ringleaders of the place. The person you want to talk to is Adhira Malik. Technically they don't have a formal leader but in reality she's the one."

"Another chrome?"

"Yes. Despite trying to create a utopia where everyone is treated equally, they always seem to rise to the top, don't they?"

"To be honest, Ms. Thompsen, we didn't come here to check on some neohippies in the woods. We're looking for someone connected to the DRNs, and thought Saffron might have been targeted. Based on this information, that seems unlikely."

"Who, if I may ask?"

Kennex paused for a few long seconds, trying to decide whether tipping his hand would compromise the investigation. It seemed incredibly far-fetched to believe Vaughn would be out in an open rural district. It would be too difficult to hide the creation of an android army without cover, personnel, and supplies. "The case involves Nigel Vaughn, creator of the DRN line. Has Jorden or Saffron had any contact with him, to your knowledge?"

"Vaughn. What, has there been another mass murder to cover-up?" At Kennex's stricken expression, she stopped joking. "God, sorry I asked. No. No one has heard from Vaughn, and I can't imagine why they would. His attachment to military uses for bots is pretty much an anathema to everything Oneida stands for."

"If they hate Vaughn's ideals so much, why do they let a bunch of DRNs hang around?"

She twisted a blossom off a tree, rolling it between her fingers and letting the floral fragrance float around them. "I think you know that the DRNs are not military bots. Not really. I'm sure Dorian is a decent enough detective if he's the one they decided to recommission, but even he is not a super soldier. They're just people, really. And because they are imperfect like people, they're being thrown away like they're disposable Kleenex." She released the crushed flower and let the petals drift in the wind.

 

 


	2. Genies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The second part of this chapter was originally conceived as a stand-alone ficlet inspired by Kennex's awesome house in "Perception," among others. But the themes of the idea fit very well for this story so I've stuck it in here. More actual plot coming up in Chapter 3 ...

When the two detectives met back in the car, Dorian seemed even _more_ distracted that he had on the drive down. His face was a riot of blue with the occasional orange streak, which John had learned meant "emotional turmoil." It was going to be a long ride back.

John looked his partner up and down. "Gonna call it in to Maldonado. Did you learn anything else from Jorden?"

"Not ... relevant to the case. He hasn't heard anything about Vaughn." John nodded and punched up the station. He'd get whatever was bothering Dorian out on the car trip.

"Captain. Both Thompsen and the DRN report that Leung and the missing DRNs are at a commune up near Nicomen Mountain, called 'Oneida.' We have the coordinates. It sounds like a very primitive environment, no electrical access, so Vaughn's involvement is unlikely. Should we drive up there and interview her?"

There was a lengthy pause on the other end as Maldonado looked up the group. "Provincial RCMP has an open case on Oneida, so do not engage. Come on back and have Dorian send in your report from the car. I'll forward it on, they may want a debriefing."

"Got it. See you tomorrow, Captain." He hung up and started the car. "So what's with the worried face, Dorian? Spill it."

"Jorden and Sofia are lovers." His voice was calm but his expression betrayed the agitation.

"Yeah. I got that."

"You did? How, without scanning her?"

John considered making a snarky comment, but it seemed to be a more serious teachable detective moment instead. Dorian's programming was excellent, but every once in awhile something occurred which demonstrated his inexperience. Normally he did a good job of picking up subtle unconscious cues, but perhaps the fact that the couple involved a DRN had thrown him off.

"Her eyes dilated and breathing quickened when he walked into the room, they sat closer together than platonic friends would, her intonation when talking about him." Physiological responses, easy information for him to apply later. "Why does it bother you, Dorian? You see sexbots every day."

"He's not a sexbot."

"Sure, except for the fact that he's a _bot_ being used for _sex."_

"He's not being _used_ for anything. He said they loved each other. That he would marry her if it were allowed."

"Okay? Still not seeing the moral dilemma here, Dorian. To each her own, whatever makes them happy."

"I just ... didn't realize we could do that. Fall in love, have a romantic relationship."

"Oh. Well, why not? You've got the emotions, you've the, uh, equipment. Haven't you ever felt attracted to anyone?"

"I don't know. What does being attracted to someone feel like?"

It was shaping up to be one of _those_ conversations. One where John was awkward as hell and simultaneously felt the urge to act as Dorian's human mentor or big brother or something. The bot had only been activated for six months, his previous stint on the force mostly deleted from memory for security purposes. John wondered what six months android translated to in human years. Sixteen years old? Thirteen? Dorian's maturity level was all over the place, sometimes adult and sometimes like a child. Of course, look who he rode with.

"It's hard to explain. There's a lot that goes into it, and honestly it's different with every person you meet. But generally there's a initial assessment of physical, sexual attractiveness. Right off there might be people whom you definitely like, ones you definitely don't and a whole grey 'maybe' range that depends on other factors. Then there's the person's personality, how well you get along. Finally there's the stage where you really get to know them, which can make a person more or less attractive depending on what you discover."

There, a dad-worthy answer. Maybe he was getting the hang of these awkward talks after all.

"Which stage went wrong with Valerie? She is universally regarded as attractive, isn't she?"

 _Shit._ "First of all, even within the range of the mega-pretty, people have preferences. But with Val ..." John paused, trying to tread carefully. He didn't want Dorian to accidentally blab something later that would hurt her feelings. "I would totally still call her a friend. But romantically, it just didn't work out. She didn't seem to be into it, or me maybe. And it's not like I don't have trust and stability issues on my end. But sometimes that spark isn't there. Do you get it?"

"No. How do you _know_ what you find sexually attractive in the first place? I can see the second part, that seems to be simply the same as making a friend. But how does love or lust come into it?"

"Chemistry is just undefinable. You'll know it when you see it. Did the DRN tell you how he knew he was attracted to Sofia?"

"Jorden said he started by wanting to spend more and more time with her. It was only after that that he felt any sort of sexual urge. He said I would understand when I had been conscious longer and had more experience."

"Right." Apparently John wasn't the only one who thought about relative android years. "That happens. Sometimes it's hot and amazing from the instant you meet, sometimes you don't see the potential in the other person until you get to know them better. Sometimes it's even triggered just by the knowledge that the _other_ person likes you. It's as if the realistic possibility of getting laid lowers your inhibitions, or at least your standards."

Dorian seemed to be relaxing, his face smooth and calm like the sea again. "You know, you have a lot of relationship advice for someone who goes home to an empty house every night," he joked.

"Tonight I'm going home with your sorry ass, what does that say about the both of us?" John retorted.

 

******

 

As they approached the garage, John automatically assessed the level of the inlet as he did every night. There were sensors to keep track of that of course, but the years of growing up in the same location plus the eight years in the remodeled house after his dad's death had given John a supernatural sense of the bay's vagaries. It had been rising his entire lifetime, slowly swallowing the shoreline streets one by one. Port Tully, with its eco-conscious sensibility, refused to build an ugly dike to hold back the inevitable consequences of humanity's two centuries of interference in the atmosphere. They preferred instead to buy out affected property owners for relocation and turn the abandoned regions into aquarian refuge zones. John's street was scheduled for demolition in four years, less if there was major ice slippage in Greenland or Antarctica. The water was only six meters from his foundation now.

John himself was thinking of going with a houseboat, although yet another retrofit was going to be expensive. He had planned ahead with the previous construction to allow for his glass house to float one day. It seemed appropriate: A finger of the sea was taking his land as its own, so perhaps he should just embrace the sea as his own. To drift unmoored, like a ghost without place or time. To just be another ant crawling along the edge of the unending mountains and trees.

All of that assumed his living room wasn't smashed in by some storm surge or tsunami in the meanwhile. Which, looking at the evil blacks clouds accumulating over the hills, was a distinct possibility tonight. The air was already thick and wet and saturated with electrical static. John's phone had beeped increasingly hysterical alerts about the impending thunderstorm the last half of the way home, warning people to say indoors and away from bathing, bodies of water and corded electrical appliances. John had joked that a recharging Dorian clearly belonged to the latter category, a comment that was met with a combination of bravado and fear. They were going to have a great view.

Upon arrival, however, the storm was still far off in the distance. John opened up the back patio doors to let the strange air sizzling and fresh off the bay at the same time. The two of them sat side by side in some lounge chairs just inside the open doors, watching the clouds rolling in and relaxing. John helped himself to some leftover pizza and a beer, while Dorian hooked himself up to the portable charger for what little energy he could get while still conscious, in case lighting prevented him from doing so later. They both knew he should retire and charge up for real while he had the chance, but it was more fun to relax with a friend.

"So you really think something artificial can match this beauty?" The sun was setting now over to the left of their north-facing view, back-lighting the storm clouds in brilliant crimson. Lighting was starting to flicker at the bottom edges of the front, the flashes reflecting on the water. There were going to be forest fires tonight.

"'Artificial' is a big category, John. All of the world's art is technically artificial. Is a world-class symphony or painting inferior to this?"

"Painting yes, symphony maybe. _Inferior_ isn't really the word, more like _lacking grandeur._ Splendor."

"Maybe it's a matter of perception. When I look at the cityscape, it's this magnificent display of electrical impulses and heat differentials and all the world's building materials on display. It's no less splendid."

As they were debating, new flickering appeared over the shore. Not lighting, right in front of them, buzzing in front of the house.

"Can your supersight tell what those are, Dorian?"

"Fireflies, I think. Although they are not native to western North America."

"Yeah, in 38 years I've never seen fireflies here."

As they watched the fireflies swooped and danced to a coordinated rhythm. Then by some undetected signal they all simultaneously changed into a blinking rainbow of colors, blue and violet and Christmas-light red. John began to laugh. They were genies, genetically engineered organisms that someone had released into the wild. Any high school kid with a sequencer in their basement could theoretically make them nowadays, although of course it was illegal. Most of these creatures died rather abruptly upon contact with nature, for it turned out intelligent design wasn't so competitive with millions of years of evolution. Occasionally a genie successfully integrated into the local ecosystem ... or disrupted it, to the environmentalists' chagrin. There were rumors of small mastodons crashing through the public forests, scimitar cats, massive butterflies with Elvis' face on the wings, camelids roaming Stanley park, giant condors buzzing drones and the Wall, hummingbirds with the imitative abilities of parrots. Every week a new one popped up.

Dorian looked at John's grinning face and smiled back. "Are they natural or artificial, would you say? Can biology be art?" He jumped down off the tiny back deck to attempt to catch some specimens for the Ag Ministry's ecosystem folks.

"Hey, don't fall in the bay. If you collapse in sparkly blue short-circuited heap, I guarantee video is going on the Net."

Dorian ignored him and tried to grab the flitting insects without slipping in the mud. For all his analytical capabilities this fine motor task eluded him. The flies darted around his hands, to his eternal frustration. John thought it was adorable. Even kind of beautiful, with all those colors whirring around his body and shining on his skin. Maybe he was bullshitting this whole 'natural is prettier' conversation.

In a surge of triumph Dorian captured one of his flying prey by clapping both hands together. At that exact moment the rain began to fall. The fireflies instantly snuffed out their lights and disappeared.

"Well come in you crazy bot! You're getting soaked!" Dorian slid back up the slope to the back door, stumbling in and dripping a puddle on the wood floor. The lightning and thunder were beginning in earnest now over their part of the city, practically blinding them as it reflected off the water. The downpour hit the glass house hard, dribbling off the sides in pulsating waves. From the ocean to ocean, the water returned home.

John retrieved a towel and some spare clothes. "Here, you're making a mess. You're okay, right? I was just kidding about the blue sparkle thing. Surely you're rainproof to live in Vancouver." Dorian took the towel and wrapped it over his soggy head, but hesitated over the clothes.

"Thanks, man, I'm fine. But I'd dry faster without any clothes on."

"Remember how we talked about your lack of personal space? This is what I'm talking about. Although if you painted your chest gold ..."

They both laughed. "I'll keep that in mind."

 


	3. The assignment

Valerie stared out the window of her SkyTrain car, watching the shiny cityscape whiz by as she nursed a macchiato. She wasn't much of a morning person, and the routine glide over the skyline was a nice meditative commencement to the day. The previous evening's storm had scrubbed the city to an even more gleaming state than usual, and that plus the moist clouds dripping down the mountains in the background made for a lovely contrast. As if some spirit of nature itself was going to roll down and blanket the artifice, just like the bay eating off small sectors of town one puzzle piece of the grid at a time.

Val's phone chirped lightly to the tune of her "work-related" audio tag. A meeting with the provincial RCMP was added to her schedule at two, referenced to the missing DRN case. Surprising. She had read John's report the day before -- really Dorian's from the linguistic style, although the human partners always got the credit -- and agreed with his assessment that whatever else the chrome commune was up to, it likely didn't include Vaughn. Out of their jurisdiction, then.

She skimmed the report again just to imbed more of the details in her mind, then let her thoughts drift over to the authors. John and Dorian, quite the pair. Her own dating excursion with John had been -- well, disastrous would be an exaggeration. More like disappointing for all concerned parties. John had been courteous, and funny and ... and ...

Nice. Too damned nice. Of course she had been completely nice right back, which translated into the most boring, spark-free hookup in history. It was interesting how altered Kennex's personality was when he was with different people: Sandra, Richard, other colleagues, but especially Dorian. He constantly bitched about how much the DRN annoyed him, but was clearly more vital, competent, _alive_ when Dorian was around. And Dorian, who was normally very quiet and deferential around anyone other than his partner and perhaps Rudy, also seemed to develop much more of a personality when he was interacting with John. Valerie wondered if the two of them were at all conscious of these facts, easily observable from the outside. She knew Maldonado had seen it too.

Valerie herself was yearning for something more than nice. Jake too had been perfectly pleasant, and eventually his confused chiseled face had been waved off the way of Kennex. She wanted more than boring, more than insipid suburban domesticity, more than her fellow chromes' traditional haughty superiority. More than ordinary. Which was a problem, because she felt own persona was the epitome of introverted blandness, prefabricated prettiness aside. Like did attract like.

One of these days she would have to break the dull predictability to her life, take up some grand adventure or project to force herself out of this soul-crushing ennui. But like every other day, she procrastinated that until tomorrow.

 

******

 

At a couple of minutes to two Valerie met up with John and Dorian for the mystery meeting. Three paces from the door to the conference room she stopped suddenly, eyes narrowing at the RMCP personnel inside. _Her._ Out of all the officers they could have sent, it had to be her, the only other chrome in law enforcement in all of British Columbia, so far as Val knew. With a flash of premonition she realized the case probably had nothing to do with Vaughn or the DRNs, but that the cult was attracting attention. She was being assigned to the chrome beat, yet again.

"I don't know who that is, but I hate her too in solidarity," John whispered to her frowning face. Valerie smiled wryfully."Her name is Catherine Letty. We were in the masters program in Criminal Studies at UBC together. The only two chromes. Our views on the appropriate place of the genetically engineered in society ... diverge."

"Ah." Val's opinion of her fellow chromes was well-known and beloved in the ranks. "Well, we can glare at Her Highness together." Maldonado arrived and impatiently bade the other three in.

Constable Letty introduced herself and her assistant, and launched into the briefing. "As you know, Detective Kennex stumbled across a commune on Nicomen, characterized by an unusual number of chromes and DRNs in residence."

Kennex cleared his throat. "You mean, _Detective Dorian_ and I ran across the crazies. Together."

Letty's eyes flicked towards Dorian for an instant as if she was just then noting his existence, then back to Kennex. "Right. We believe the group was founded and led by these two individuals: Adhira Malik, age 23, and her grandmother Vidya Malik, age 68." She flashed the pair's photos up on the screen. Adhira was shockingly beautiful, obviously a chrome.

"Wait," Valerie broke in. " _The_ Vidya Malik? The geneticist?"

"Is this someone I'm supposed to know of?" asked John.

Letty shifted in irritation at the constant interruptions. "Yes, _the_ Vidya Malik. Her innovative method to synthesize long DNA sequences was the key development that sparked the chrome revolution in the twenties. Before Malik, scientists could barely synthesize a couple thousand base pairs with any accuracy, obviously inadequate for anything more than a couple of genes at a time. Now the entire genome can be designed digitally, letter-by-letter, and chemically printed off like a novel." John and Val glanced at each other simultaneously. _Chrome revolution?_

"So the geneticist decided to get out of town," said Kennex. "What are they doing up there that's illegal?"

"We believe the group, or elements in the group, are responsible for many of the genie appearances recently. There has been a large uptick in organisms released around both Vancouver and Calgary in the past year, as well as evidence of massively altered seed and pollen being released over the public forests."

"Excuse me for being blunt, Constable" -- although it was far too late for him -- "but how is that any different than the chrome revolution you were just mentioning? Releasing genetically engineered animals and plants into the wild is terrible and illegal, but releasing genetically engineered human beings is just peachy?"

"Making a better human being will inevitably lead to better human societies, Detective. What the Maliks are trying to do is far more sweeping. We hypothesize that their goal is to re-engineer the ecology of all of the Pacific Northwest, possibly the entire western seaboard. The FBI is investigating several new groups in Washington and Oregon inspired by Oneida, and they too are seeing genie releases in the vicinity of the communes."

"California could only be improved by a little re-engineering. It's a disaster zone down there," commented Kennex. Letty shot him yet another look of disapproval.

"The Maliks believe that science has been perverted by the interests of the powerful, and that only by renouncing most of that power and bringing what they consider useful science to the people will society be saved. They are social anarchists, in other words. Something that is clearly unacceptable when coupled with the ability to alter the environment we all share. "

"How do the DRNs fit into to all of this?" Dorian's soft voice cut through for the first time in the briefing.

"Unclear. Adhira began making underground darknet broadcasts six months ago, extolling their philosophy and exhorting others to follow in Oneida's example. That fits the timeline of Saffron Leung's withdrawal from school and your report from DRN-225. They are obviously using the DRNs' satellite capabilities to connect to the Net, but it is unknown whether they are involved with the genies or not. Satellite and drone surveillance has been spotty due to tree cover, so all we know for sure is that they have been involved in a lot of horticulture tasks. And they like to hang out in the sun."

"Now it's my turn to be blunt, Catherine," said Valerie. "Why are we being briefed on this? Obviously Nicomen Mountain is far outside of Vancouver PD's jurisdiction, and you've clearly been monitoring this case for awhile."

  
"I have a cover planned to enter the community next week. It is imperative that we discover whether they are involved in the genie releases, what their goals are, where the production facility is, and prevent any more ecological contamination, if possible. Shutting down the broadcasts may become an operational goal as well, particularly if the Americans get their panties in a bunch. It has been suggested" -- and here she shot Maldonado a withering expression to demonstrate her distaste for the so-called suggestion -- "that having another chrome and a DRN along would be an advantage. Particularly the DRN, since their part in the commune is mostly a mystery. Since the Vancouver PD has the only operational DRN that has been vetted and Lugared for police work, _and_ the only other chrome, we would like to borrow you for the intelligence mission. The RCMP has not been trained or authorized to have robotic partners, so Stahl will be there to supervise your DRN as well."

"Wait, what?" said Kennex. "You're taking Dorian? I don't get to go?"

Maldonado spoke up. "I'm sorry, John. It will only be a for a couple of weeks. But I can't spare you and they don't need you. Especially with a synthetic leg that needs charging."

"Dorian has an entire synthetic _body_ that needs charging. How's that going to work?"

Letty took the question. "I will speak to my contacts when setting up their covers, but the DRNs are somehow operational up there. Presumably some modifications will have to be made. I will find out if any additional materials will be needed by Leung to install the solar implants."

Kennex crossed his arms in front of him and leaned back in his chair. "Aren't you even going to ask him? If he wants to go and be trussed up and 'modified' like a fancy painted sports cruiser?"

"It's okay, John. I do want to go. It sounds like ... fun?" Dorian's face was dancing blue, as if he were mulling over all the possibilities of the situation. It would be his first time outside of the city overnight. And camping. And partnering with someone other than John, that he remembered at least.

"Oh, sure man, abandon me to the MXs. Thanks a lot."

"Yeah, John, about that." Maldonado gave Kennex a mild, pleasant look that betrayed her lethality. "The commission decided that willful sabotage of an android is destruction of police property, and the offending party will have the cost leined against their salary. So if any MXs go mysteriously missing during Dorian's absence, you can kiss your houseboat goodbye."

"That's not very nice, Captain. Accidents do happen."

"Not over the next few weeks, they had better not. Although I do have a social anthropology opening available, if you'd like a more desk-oriented job." Kennex just gave her his best petulant face while the others laughed. Except Letty, of course.

"Right. I will send Stahl and the DRN their cover information over the next few days. Be prepared to go a week from Friday." She gathered her materials, nodded at her assistant and Maldonado, and curtly left the station.

The other four sat around a few minutes to discuss. Kennex still looked massively unhappy at the prospect of having an MX partner for awhile. Or maybe it was just Dorian leaving him that was the issue. "Seriously, Captain, how did we get roped into this? Hippies with gene guns in the woods, not our problem."

"Mmm, a favor _might_ have been called in. There appears to be some doubt whether the good Constable Letty has the requisite attitude to fit in an anarchist commune. The fact that she's their sole chrome was the primary reason she got the case. Besides, I asked your partner this morning, and he said yes."

John turned to him, aghast. "You knew all day and didn't tell me?"

"It's just a temporary assignment, John. But I wanted to try something new. New experiences. An adventure. Don't worry, I'll tell you all about it when we get back. And you did want me to get in touch with nature."

Kennex didn't seem at all mollified for the betrayal. "I meant enjoy the scenery, not go have a mystical experience swinging through the trees."

"Okay, you two." Maldonado cut them off. "You can complain about this amongst yourselves, but meanwhile there's a ton of work to do before Dorian ships out. Go. Now." Once they were gone, Maldonado glanced at Stahl, ready to field the obvious question.

"You didn't ask me if I wanted to go in advance."

"No, I didn't. For one thing you don't have to have your entire body modified to go, like Dorian does. But that's not the real reason. You've seemed a bit down recently, Valerie. A change in pace would do you good. And I think you will find this case and this group to be very interesting. Take a look at Adhira Malik's darknet broadcasts and you'll see what I mean." She patted Valerie on the shoulder and left as well.

Valerie sat for several minutes, unsure whether to feel patronized or comforted that someone was looking after her. Apparently a someone with uncanny observational powers, for she thought she was hiding her life apathy well. Since the conference room wasn't scheduled for anything else the rest of the day, she punched up a random Malik video to the screen. It was her job, after all. She was always prepared, no matter what else was swimming in her head.

Three hours later she was still glued to the same chair, mesmerized by Adhira's exquisite face and charismatic storytelling. Valerie had run out of broadcasts, so she settled in for three more hours and watched them all again.

 


	4. Androids in the wilderness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the unconscionable delay in updating, folks. An extra-long chapter for your wait.

Dorian watched nervously as a bleary and over-caffeinated Rudy made the final adjustments to his mito processors. Even by android standards having someone do such delicate work while awake was disconcerting, but when the person in question had a 15 Hz physiological tremor due to staying up all night, it was downright alarming. Still, Dorian preferred to be awake to help monitor the proceedings when someone was fiddling with his innards, particularly something as delicate and vital as the fallaciously-named mitochondrial chips. Like the pro that he was, Rudy finally finished the job and snapped the battery module shut, and reached for another swig of coffee before closing him up.

John appeared at the door, trailed by his blank-faced MX. "Hey Dorian, how goes the surgery? You feel like you could live on sunshine and creepy smiles?"

"The nano won't be installed until we get there, so ... no? I'm a little nervous, John. What if it doesn't work? I'll have to come back within a couple of days." Dorian replaced the chest panel, the skin sealing up flawlessly around his torso, and pulled his shirt back over his head.

John clasped his shoulder. "It's your first undercover assignment. Aww, how fast they grow up. Got your cover, uh, covered?"

"Valerie and Catherine are posing as a couple from the University of Calgary, as an anthropology team interested in studying the Oneida movement. I'm their research assistant."

"So not much of a stretch. Smart. Except for the couple part. Who's brilliant idea was that? Val's going to need all of her acting skills to pull that one off."

"Well, apparently there is a very free sexual atmosphere at the commune. Constable Letty felt that, by posing as a couple, they would be under less pressure to participate in any unwanted activities."

John smirked at this development. "Val's there to cock-block the two of them? Takes all the fun out of it. At least they left you free." Dorian's smile vanished, and John grinned even harder.

"Is this your new partner?" Dorian indicated the MX, studiously guarding the front door.

"I consider it to be a Bureau-required accessory, not a partner. Like a monkey on my back, eh One-Two?"

One-Two, real designation MX-1212, stared straight ahead, completely ignoring Kennex's barbs. Dorian went up to give it some friendly advice. "John's really not all that terrible when you get to know him. Just try not to antagonize him and you'll be fine." One-two didn't deign to gaze at the inferior DRN, either.

Stahl and Letty arrived at the door, dressed in jeans, billowy peasant blouses and hiking boots. Val looked even more aesthetically beautiful than usual to Dorian, with her silky hair down and no makeup. A more natural human.

"Has it been modified to your satisfaction, Mr. Lom?" Letty asked, motioning to Dorian.

"Um, _he_ is done, yes. You can just ask him directly, you know. I mean, if you want," stuttered Rudy.

"Then let's go. We have several hours of driving and another hour of hiking before we even reach the compound. Get your things, DRN unit."

Dorian went to grab the large bag of spare parts sitting on a workbench, but then he surprise-hugged John before getting there, without saying a word. It seemed important to have physical contact, even if that was awkward by customary human male standards. He would miss John.

"Uhh, I'll miss you too Dorian. You'll be great. Gotta let me go now, Dee."

"Right. Text me if you have any issues with the MX, it's much less data off the satellite feed than a phone call. Don't shoot him or throw him out of the car, John."

"I'll try and restrain myself. Maldonado's got me by the short hairs on that one."

They smiled and shook hands, and the three undercover officers headed out.

 

******

 

On the ride over Valerie was quiet and contemplative, while Constable Letty was still all business. Val liked to let the steamy air blow in her face as she gazed through an open window, just like John, despite the heat and unnecessary drag on the car. Dorian tried to engage the RCMP officer in conversation, to get to know her and hopefully allow her to relax in his presence. He didn't want her to think of him as a mere accessory.

"Catherine? Are you nervous about this assignment?"

"Why would I be nervous, bot? I've done my homework, I know these people inside and out. I think I know enough to pass for one of them philosophically."

Val broke in without lifting her eyes off the window. "Knowledge is not the same as socialization, Cat." From her tone of voice, it was clearly an argument they had had many times before. "It isn't enough to merely mouth Adhira's words. It's not a matter of your great intellect. You have to make them _like_ you in order to fit into a small cohesive group."

While this fascinating conversation was commencing, Dorian received a text. From John.

_Gonna kill damn bot_

Dorian sent back: _ **Don't kill the bot, he's only following programming. Think of your house**_

_ TOUCHED THE LEG D. FUCK NOW MY COFFEE TOO _

_**I dropped an eyeball in your coffee and you still like me** _

"I can be likeable, Val. Why does everyone seem to think I will fail miserably at this assignment? Even the goddamn DRN?"

Dorian had to drag himself away from the stream of text s to pay attention to Letty's comment. "I don't think you will fail, Constable. You are the senior officer in charge and have been working this case for months. Why wouldn't you be able to fit in?" Val actually snorted at that, and Dorian knew what John would say if he were here.  _ Way to suck it up D.  _ Well. Sometimes you had to,  in order  to smooth over inter-officer relations.

What John actually sent him was,  _ You left me w/backstabbing machine. Do I still like you? _

_**I've been gone 93 minutes** _ _**man** _ _**. Deal** _ _**with it.** _

"See, Val? Your robot can be sociable. Of course it was programmed that way."

Valerie nearly rolled her eyes, but her focus remained studiously on the view outside, not her new so-called partner. "You are programmed too, Cat. Isn't that the point of us chromes? Perfection? Or someone's idea of perfection anyway. Clearly there's some wiggle room for individual expression."

Catherine scowled at the insult, her control over the car deviating by an alarming eight percent. Before the situation devolved into a shouting match, Dorian tried to smooth the conversation over. "We  only need to get along in order to do our jobs, officers. You don't have to like each other personally, but we're all professionals. Maybe we should go over our covers one more time to practice?"

_ tell dorian _ _ he needs to get his ass out of the trees and  _ _ send you back to the bot factory in the sky _ _ no don't transmit all that you idiot piece of junk _

Apparently John was  now  passive-aggressively forcing the MX to text him via the cruiser. Maybe not passively. Dorian decided to automatically forward all texts to a separate memory module, check back in on him later. John was  a  strange human sometimes. He was Dorian's best friend of course, but also often the colloquial pain in the ass. Perhaps  the rest of the day off so they could concentrate on their new temporary partners would be beneficial for them both.

_**MX-1212, tell John that I said to stop using you as his personal doormat. And** _ _**that** _ _**I'm signing off for a few hours** _ _**, so he can get used to you as his partner instead of texting me** _ _**.** _

"I think we know what we're supposed to do, DRN. My, you are a people pleaser, aren't you?"

Dorian thought he had to be a people pleaser, seeing how people had the power to send him to the black oblivion of deactivation. He didn't articulate this to Letty, though. "You are correct, Constable. That is the way we have been programmed. Conflict does not support our mission of assisting police services." Technically this was a lie; all the DRNs had different personalities emanating from their very different synthetic souls, although they all had the same terminal values protecting human life etched in. It sounded like what she wanted to hear, though.

Valerie roused herself to glance at him in the backseat, eyes twinkling for the first time on the trip. "And yet you and John bicker all the time. It's adorable."

Adorable? Why would she choose that word? A word meant for small children and furry animals? "You have a odd definition of cute, Valerie."

"You two really are clueless, aren't you?" She waved her hand out in the soupy air, letting the wind and whisking flower petals roll across her fingers. Dorian wondered what the appeal of that motion held for her.. "Listen, do you like being with John?"

"Of course I do, he's my partner and my friend."

"Did you ever think about being more than friends?"

Letty shot Val a look of utter disapproval, but Dorian was simply baffled by both the comment and the Constable's reaction. He couldn't see Valerie's face from behind her head, but she had sounded amused. "More? What else is there? I'm honored that John is my friend."

She laughed liltingly. Not as if she were making fun of him, he interpreted, but as if there was something joyous in the situation, occupying some mental blind spot he could just detect the edges of. "Yes. I'm glad you're honored, Dorian. You'll figure it out. Maybe the other DRNs can help you."  
"I hope that's the case," Dorian replied, not really comprehending what she was talking about. He leaned back into his seat so that the air from her window buffered his face, letting her word "more" ramble in his mind.

 

******

 

They disembarked at their destination on the mountain, at a well-worn footpath off an old dirt logging road at 800 meters. The car was programmed to automatically drive itself back down to a more well-trafficked junction and self-park off the road, in case they needed a vehicle to leave on short notice. It could standby on emergency power reserves for up to eight weeks, awaiting their satellite signal.

Dorian glanced around at the terrain. They were surrounded by an ordinary stand of dense second-growth Douglas Fir, typical of areas that had been clear cut in decades past. By triangulating from shadows cast on the ground Dorian estimated the trees were about 23 meters tall, or 35-40 years in age, consistent with the land use on record for that location. The only sign marking the path to the commune was an symbol carved into a large chunk of granite, a dot inside a circle inside a square. The trail led up into the forest laterally in terms of elevation, so it wasn't a steep hike.

It was two in the afternoon, approaching the hottest part of the day, and both the accompanying women already looked uncomfortable. Although they were in excellent athletic shape, Valerie and Catherine were also both accustomed to climate-controlled offices as their primary habitat. Dorian picked up their two large packs as well as his duffel bag of bot body components, and headed into the understory. He satcommed Maldonado an update of their location just as the car began to obediently back down the hill behind them.

They trudged in silence through the densely planted woodland, keeping an eye out for any sign of the inhabitants of their destination. Dorian had downloaded reams of data on the ecology of forests in the Pacific Northwest in preparation for this assignment, but all of that did not adapt him to the experience of being immersed in a completely foreign environment. The ambient noise level was less than that of the city, yet the constant rustling of branches, birds chirping, insects gnawing from beneath fallen logs, water condensing and dribbling off tendrils of mosses, and even the groans of swaying evergreen trucks seemed a distracting cacophony. He had to add those sounds to his "background noise" module, in order to filter out more relevant signals to pay attention to.

Androids really weren’t preprogrammed for nature, he realized. A strong breeze of a possibly pending thunderstorm buffeted them, so despite the humidity both Catherine and Valerie seemed to be enjoying the walk. They were covered in sweat and strolling slowly, yet their breathing, heart rates and eye dilation all indicated an unconscious calming effect. Something in their mammalian brain _was_ preprogrammed for such a habitat -- if not exactly temperate rainforest, then something akin to it.

The forest changed as they walked, the trees growing bigger, taller, more varied. More wild. Back near the road the thicket had felt like the proverbial woodlot, an agricultural zone of formally-spaced timber trees of similar age, all hogging the light and stretching for the sun at the same eager rate. Now huge old red ceders and Sitka spruces appeared in irregular formations, interspersed with younger transition species in places where the ancient ones had died or fallen, opening up the canopy with patches of all-important sunlight. A rare plot of old growth forest, although Dorian had no record of how it had escaped logging. Signs of the recent decades-worth of increased rainfall were everywhere, with multiple-meter long green mosses dripping off every branch, and giant ferns lending the impression that they had traveled back to the time of the dinosaurs. Someone kept the trail clear, though.

In the distance Dorian thought he spotted something shiny gold and blue, artificial, popping out amongst the legionous shades of green. He zoomed in his optics to get a better look, and smiled at his companions at the result. "Another DRN is up ahead." The android saw them too, and gave them a sweeping wave with his arm. Dorian repeated the movement as best he could with the duffel bag in his hand.

The gold-chested DRN was standing near the edge of a clearing with his shirt off, just inside the forest line. Dorian noticed the gold seemed to have a different texture on this bot that Jorden, with a subtle hexagonal pattern running vertically down his chest. On his neck and left side of his face the nanos turned a shimmering blue, almost like the cheek matrix but more reflective and granular, and formed an intricate puzzle design near the ear. "Hi there, welcome to Oneida. From Calgary, right? I'm Link." He held out his hand to Valerie, who smiled and took it.

"Val Pena, my wife Cath Arcand, our assistant Darwin." She waved at the all of them in introduction.

Link shook all of their hands, lingering a bit over Dorian's. "Darwin? Really, you got saddled with Darwin?"

"My last assignment was in evo-devo, someone thought they had a sense of humor. DRN-356." The actual 356 did indeed work in the developmental biology department at Calgary, and had quietly been removed from the university in the system, although he probably didn't know it.

"Ah. Well, feel free to change it. Or not, we pretty much believe you can have any identity you want here. Many of the humans go by a new moniker, to indicate they've taken up a new life."

He picked up one of the bags and motioned them into the field. The three sojourners stepped out blinking into the sun ... and stopped again, arrested by the incredible sight in front of them. The glacier-less mountain peak jutted up directly above them, like a rocky castle towering over the medieval countryside. Only instead of rolling farm fields there was a band of savannah-like food orchards, just below a green swath of the largest trees any of them had ever seen. Nestled midway up the trunks was a system of platforms and structures, the living village of Oneida.

They wandered through the orchards on the way to the commune proper, and here Dorian's categorization worked overtime on the plants, since part of their mission was to determine if the cult was developing illicit genies, flora included, although the legal regulations on agricultural plants were laxer than animals. Link narrated along the way, which helped confirm what they were looking at.

"The human population of Oneida has some backup stores of caloric staples such as beans and wheat, but for the most part we are trying to make the food supply as self-sufficient as possible. The top layer is about 50-50 nuts and fruit trees. In the understory we have berry bushes, viney legumes, and taller herbaceous material such as fiber hemp and our perennial quinoa. On the margins of all of that we have herbs and various vegetables, and some long beds for the annuals people can't seem to live without. Tomatoes, man, no matter how much tinkering they still can't make it through a hard frost." He chatted about specific plants here and there. Virtually all were perennial, able to survive year after year with little care. The entire area was a food jungle, managed as a living ecosystem.

"You mentioned tinkering," Letty broke in. "Does that include genetic engineering, or is all this the product of traditional breeding methods?" Dorian could see Val was a little annoyed by the question, presumably because they were trying to make a star-struck impression, not interrogate their hosts and generally act like cops. With his new microarray chip Dorian could come down here himself and determine if the level of modification stayed within the bounds of the law.

Link didn't seem perturbed by the question, though. "Most of the smaller perennials have been modified, yes. All within the bounds of PCSA of course. We perennialized the quinoa, for instance, by introducing some genes from an old European herb called Good King Henry, in the same genus." The Plant Contamination & Safety Act of 2030 had liberalized many of the previous restrictions on genetic engineering, allowing genes to be transferred within the same species or genus with much less subsequent safety testing compared with, say, a gene originating from fish put into a tomato.

"Do you do the required tox screens and register these plants with the Ag Ministry?" Letty persisted. Val's shoulders tensed, resisting the urge to drag her aside and start arguing again.

"Of course. Saff even modified a few of my fellow DRNs' chemical analysis capabilities to do the screens, so we don't have to send anything out anymore. But for the most part, you don't need it." He leaned over and plucked a perfectly red strawberry off the edge of the path they were strolling along. "Here, just taste it. Human taste sensation has evolved over the millennia to detect anything bitter. That's how your ancestors determined if things were poisonous."

Catherine managed to widen her eyes and frown at the same time at the luscious berry, as if it might jump up and bite her. Val rescued her by grabbing it out of the DRN's hand. "I'll be brave, go first." She popped the strawberry into her mouth and tried not to grin, dripping red juice. "Pretty damn good, Cath. Come on ... try one.' She too picked a berry from the patch and proffered it, effectively forcing her partner to taste the thing.

Catherine's lemony reaction turned into a smile, the first hint of humor Dorian had observed in her so far. "All right, I accept you're not trying to kill me with anything that delicious."

They made through the extensive orchard, swiping many more strawberries along the way, until they arrived at the base of the giant trees. Here all three travelers stood and gaped again, for the specimens in the grove were awe-inspiring, even for an android. A quick scan revealed they _averaged_ over six meters in diameter, rivaling the largest living individual trees for those species. The cluster of huts only a third of the way up seemed puny in comparison, gazing at those majestic beings imposing over them. Dorian accessed provincial permits for this GPS location and determined that the whole area had been cleared by logging only 33 years prior.

The trees themselves were genies. The only question was whether they were legal.

Dorian wondered what would happen to the grove if their spying concluded they were not. Would the government destroy something wondrous, harmless, in the name of a technicality? Kill the trees for their lumber and start again with a barren mountainside? The possibility seemed an affront to decency, and Dorian began to understand for the first time John's proclamations about the singularity of nature.

Some figures emerged off a woven hemp staircase a few trees into the grove. Dorian recognized Adhira Malik, Saffron Leung and another unidentified shirtless DRN. Adhira, like Valerie, evinced an extraordinary aesthetic form. Her long black hair was assembled into dozens of braids cascading over her shoulders, and like most of the chromes she had flawless skin that gleamed a comforting hazel as she stepped into the sun. But it wasn't the individual features that defined her beauty, but her entire presence, including her warm intelligent eyes.

Saffron, on the other hand, had her black hair cut short and pulled up into two spiky pigtails on top of her head. That plus the overalls and her tiny round face made her look like a young pixie farmer barely into her teens. She ignored the new humans and beelined straight for Dorian, peering at him as if she could absorb his neural net from a meter away.

Adhira smiled at all of them. "Welcome to Oneida, friends. We meet at last." That could have come off as a grandiose, but Dorian thought both the smile and intonation were genuine, or at least well-faked.

Link introduced everyone, naming the DRN as "Data." "As in scientific knowledge?" asked Dorian.

"No, as in a character from one of the older Star Trek vids. I would have preferred Spock, but there was a social consensus that the android matched my personality better, so I have adhered to that standard." Dorian looked at Link and grinned.

"So, are you getting hungry? You still want to do the nanos?" Saff asked Dorian. Her first spoken words, soft.

"I am at 91 percent charge now, but I would still like to discuss the modifications. Maybe talk to everyone first?" he replied.

"Okay, come along then." She waved him and the other two DRNs away from the grove towards a cluster of huts on the ground alongside the orchard.

Dorian glanced at his colleagues. Val gave him a reassuring nod. "I guess you're not going up. We'll see you later, Darwin." He nodded in return, and left his partners' bags at their feet. The luggage was being loaded into a huge basket affixed to double-weighted pulley system, and the women chatting animatedly, as he turned to hurry after Saffron. It worried him a little, being split up like that just after arriving, but there was no sense of danger.

Saffron, two other humans, and the DRNs lived in a cluster of cozy cabins a south-facing slope in front of the massive tangle of nut trees. Link lingered behind so Dorian could catch up and talk. "We need access to the sun to charge up, so it doesn't make sense for us to live in the shade twenty meters up," Link explained. "Plus Saff likes her privacy. She isn't really into some of the parties they throw up there, generally prefers a quiet atmosphere."

"Adhira introduced Data as her 'companion'. Are they ... together?"

"You mean, are they lovers? Not in the traditional sense. Saff's not a very sexual person, and of course neither are we. She does prefer Data's company, so companionship works well to describe the relationship. Upstairs they have their orgies, and downstairs we have our sunbathing snuggle fests. No judgment here, everyone can explore the other side if they want to."

It was difficult for Dorian to process everything in that short speech. He immediately thought of Jorden, how his love for his wife contradicted the notion that the DRNs were not sexual. However, the persona Darwin had never met Jorden. "I've heard that some of us can fall in love and have regular relationships."

"First, I'd argue that falling in love and experiencing sexual desire are two different things, even if they are mixed up for most humans. Second, I'm not saying you can't have sex. Most of us have done it at least once, just to know what it feels like."

Dorian couldn't help himself. "What _does_ it feel like?"

"Interesting. Like sticking your hand in a warm pond teeming with microorganisms."

"That's not exactly a ringing endorsement, Link." The other DRN laughed.

"It's not super pleasurable because there's no desire in it, no lust. You have to know the other person intimately, on an emotional level, before any feelings like that can develop. At least that's what we've observed so far, maybe it will change if we are allowed to stay conscious and retain our memories longer. You see that woman over there?" He pointed to brown-haired figure in mud-streaked clothes, yet another chrome Dorian guessed. "She owned Cyril for over a year before anything happened. He was her executive assistant, then her friend, then her emotional confidant, and only then her lover."

"A good argument to develop a lot of friendships, see what happens."

Link grinned again. "See, you're getting the point of Oneida already. To form any type of relationship you want, without societal pressure telling you it should go this way and that. The chromes could live for centuries, and so could we if the parts keep coming. We want to make that long life mean something, other than working hard in a soulless economy in order to consume more crap than you need. That means deep relationships, with other beings, with the earth too."  
"Yes, I've been indoctrinated in Adhira's lectures," Dorian said, and they both laughed this time.

"Well, my friend, it's time to do the nanos, if you still want to stay here for than a day. Which it sounds like you do. You ready?"

They entered the small building that functioned as Saff's lab space, such as it was. She had a solar panel on the roof, so the building was the only one with formal electricity at the compound. Compared to Rudy's lab it really was a primitive clinic in the jungle, with only the most basic diagnostic and repair capabilities. Dorian dumped his large duffel on a table in front of three eager DRNs. "Here. I brought goodies."

"P-chips?" one of them asked, desperate. " _Tell_ me you brought p-chips, man. The one thing around here that doesn't grow on trees." The minute piezoelectric chips were the key to making their artificial muscles work. They burned out and had to be replaced with disturbing regularity. Dorian triumphantly pulled out a jar of over 5000 p-chips, to oohs and ahhs.

"All right Darwin, take off your shirt and sit here." Saffron motioned him into a chair next to a computer terminal and what appeared to be an aquarium tank filled with gold liquid. The nanos were swimming around, surging, looking every bit alive. She was about to hook him up when Link gently held her hand.

"Saff, I haven't given him the disclaimer and consent information yet."

"Oh. Okay. Does he know what he's getting into?"

"Who does?" Link leaned over and rested his index finger against Dorian's temple. A surge of data flooded his neural net, most of it tagged to draw his conscious attention instead of directly dumping into his memory banks. In the space of a few seconds, Dorian was fascinated to learn that the nanos would infect the entire epidermis, power processor and spinal column; that he could reprogram them at will, including killing them off if ever wanted to get rid of them; that while they were installed he could still use a regular recharger, but that process would take twenty percent longer; and that the nanos required darkness to replicate, so efficiency was less later in the day and his neural net would be forced to shut down for three hours every night. Oh, and finally, the whole thing had a two percent chance of overloading his neural net, causing a cascade failure that could kill him, or at least his mind.

Good to know the risks. On the plus side, there would be no need to wear a shirt for the foreseeable future.

Dorian had the sudden impulse to check on John before possibly committing suicide by miniature machines. He sent another squirt to update Maldonado on their position and downloaded John's sequestered texts over the past five hours. They ranged from _he did not just cut me off get him back you fucking toaster_ from the MX, to a final desultory _YOU. JERK._ from John's phone at 2:34 pm. Then silence. Dorian desperately wanted him by his side to lend moral support for what was about to happen, or at least to call him and hear his voice.

Saff flipped open his chest plate and hooked a gleaming wire to the reformatted mito unit. The replicator nanos started there, then spread out to strategic locations along his torso. They would need a full charge in the sun, then would start replicating in expanding patches overnight. Dorian shivered as the invasion progressed, the nanos crawling along inside his skin as they migrated out, up, into his android brain, for the neural net gobbled up a lot of energy. DRNs didn't usually experience fear -- aversions were sufficient to alert them to most noxious stimuli -- but now Dorian felt a cold terror sweep over him as the _things_ slithered up his back and into his mind. He sent a delirious note to John, a last-ditch effort at eliciting comfort as the violation progressed.

_**nanos in feel weird need someone wish you were here** _

He blacked out before he could receive any of John's frantic replies.

 

 

 


End file.
